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them in? You spineless bastard!”
    “Not these two,”
I heard the innkeeper assert.
    “They’re Triple
S!”
    “They’ve been
posted at Flown Raven for five years,” the innkeeper responded. “They wouldn’t
have been at the Academies when Bellus was there.”
    The shouter
clearly found the innkeeper unconvincing. “Get out of my way!”
    This was
followed by pounding up the stairs.
    I reached out
for the bar for the door, only to realise there wasn’t one. What kind of inn
was this, that the patrons were rendered unable to bar their doors?
    We heard the
door to a room down the hall slam open and bounce off the wall. Then swearing.
Either because the door had rebounded back into the man’s face – that was what
it sounded like – or because we weren’t there.
    “Stop destroying
my place, Colin!” The innkeeper was trying to sound forceful, I thought, but
was coming off as fearful.
    “Do you want to
bring the Triple S down on us?” another man shouted.
    “What can they
do to us?” Colin demanded. “What haven’t they already done?”
    Another door
crashed.
    The one large
piece of furniture in the room was the bed. It had a heavy wooden frame. That
could probably secure the door. Taro and I stood at either end and heaved.
    And it didn’t
move a fraction. The bloody thing weighed so much we couldn’t shift it.
    Another room was
invaded. It was occupied. There were startled exclamations and a woman
demanded, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
    Taro stood
before our door, hands placed flat against the wood, feet wide on the floor.
But here was the thing: for a man, Taro was fairly short and slight. I didn’t
think he could hold off a determined man of regular size. The fact that two men
were attempting to restrain Colin and failing at it suggested Colin might be
larger than most.
    I stepped
forward to lend my weight – more so no one could claim I just stood there and
did nothing than with any belief I would be able to actually help – just in
time to press against the door as it was shoved open.
    It pushed into
our room about a hand span before our weight forced it closed. This, of course,
alerted Colin to the fact that he now had the right room. Perhaps we should
have hidden under the bed instead of trying to move it.
    I didn’t know
exactly how he hit the door the second time, but the power of it sent Taro and
me stumbling back into the centre of the small room. The door slammed against
the wall.
    Colin was a big man, his head nearly touching the ceiling, his shoulders broad to a
degree that I would have found pleasing in other circumstances. His hair was
solid gray, his very brown face – from the sun, not natural colour – was
heavily lined, but despite his age, he was all solid muscle.
    The innkeeper
and a third man tumbled in after him.
    Colin looked at
Taro, he looked at me, he looked at Taro again, and then he punched my Source
right in the face. The impact of it hurled Taro back against the nearest wall,
his hands covering his nose.
    Colin charged at
him again, but the innkeeper leapt on his back while the third man kicked him
in the ankle. Colin went down, and the lack of space had him falling against
the tiny vanity, with its hard wooden corners, before he hit the floor.
    “That’s enough,
Colin, damn you!” the innkeeper shouted.
    I jumped over
Colin to get to Taro. He’d removed one hand from his face and his fingers were
covered with blood. “Hell,” I said, resisting the urge to touch. “Is it
broken?”
    “I don’t think
so.”
    He sounded
certain. Thank Zaire. Taro could ease the pain of others – and heal them to
some degree, I suspected, though he denied it – by touching them and using a
particular form of channelling he’d developed while still at the Source
Academy. Unfortunately, he couldn’t manage his own pain, or heal himself.
    I turned towards
Colin, who was being held to the floor by the other two men. His face was dark
red. “What the hell do